Archives For November 2013

For those that don’t know I grew up in Trinidad and have a special attachment to the Caribbean Island. My parents still live there and so does my sister, son and many other family members and friends.

Since moving from Trinidad to London UK, back in 1999, I have tried my best to go back to visit at least once per year. Every time I went back to visit it really hit me how people were living over there. Hustling each day to make money to pay the bills.

While living in Trinidad I knew there was a ‘hustle and bustle’ about things but I didn’t see the deeper meaning of things. I was ‘in it’ and didn’t see outside my small frame of thinking and helping other people.

Until living in London, where there is much more abundance and people had a different mentality and thinking process, I was now able to establish a different thought process of what was happening. I was now able to compare two totally different cultures and see things differently from what I was seeing before.

While living in London I did well for myself and was living a life with more than I needed. Loads of clothes and a new pair of sneakers every month was the life I was living.

Until one year I went to Trinidad and had a reality check with myself. I was living the ‘good life’ and other people were living the ‘not so good life.’ It made me feel very ashamed and low as I was out there enjoying life while others were scraping around just to put some clothes and food on the table.

Ever since that day I have taken clothing and shoes to give to someone back in Trinidad and also buy food for a family and take it to them. It was not much but I knew I was making a difference in someone’s life.

I also had a goal to give back more to Trinidad in any way I can but at the time I didn’t know how or what to do. I was doing little things but wanted to do more. This seed has been deep in my subconscious mind for some time now.

So when the opportunity came up with Mission1Million founder Billy Beck III came up, I jumped at it and told him what I wanted to do.

He was like YES lets go to Trinidad!

A dream I had set out many years ago was about to happen. I was excited and so was everyone else.

What is MIssion1Million about?

Our goal is to positively impact at least 1 million lives and DOCUMENT them all.
We are achieving this through…
1. Fitness – you know before and after pictures, milestones, transformations…the stuff we have been doing for 2 decades now. 🙂
2. Philanthropy – We partner and support other charities and go on some of our own excursions. For instance, our trip to Trinidad to help the homeless and get some youth involved in fitness there.

3. Adventure – The world is mainly fear-driven. Fear creates regret. What’s needed is to go outside our comfort zone.
To live not like a lamb but like a LION.
So this is one of the ways M1M raises funds, we create adventures and a portion of the money goes back into the M1M foundation. We just took a group of 11 people skydiving for the first time. Also repelled down a 19 story skyscraper in downtown Miami for charity.

So we got to work with collecting clothes and shoes for our mission to Trinidad. We originally bought 2 barrels which was filled quite quickly, and had to purchase 2 more which was also filled quickly. Yip we had to get a fifth barrel. Each one was over flowing with clothes from our AWESOME clients and friends at BB3.

While in Trinidad we are going to 3 Orphanages, Kistow home which has about 25-30 kids from 6 months old to 22yrs. Joshua Home for boys which has 15 kids, ages ranging from 3 years to 21 years and Constantine Family which has another group of kids.

This is our first mission of many to come, and I am truly excited about things to come with the Mission1Million Foundation and the lives we are going to change to make the world more AWESOME!

Intention: the thing that you plan to do or achieve : an aim or purpose

These two meanings are from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

I have never resonated with setting goals every time I set one. The thing is we were all programmed that we should set goals. From growing up our parents told us we should have a goal in life, we went to school and the teachers set us goals, we went on to work and hitting our goal became even more important. Everything was about goal setting. Every self help book out there will tell you, you should have a goal.

All great stuff and it really works once you apply the principles to it.

Here is the thing with me when it came to setting goals. IT NEVER FIRED ME UP!

I was confused to why it never fired me up to go after my goals with heart and passion. When I did set goals it excited me and took me out of my comfort zone. I was happy working towards them but felt that there was something more to all this which I could not put my finger on.

Going back to the definition of a goal: something that you are trying to achieve compared to the definition of intention: the thing that you plan to do or achieve; an aim or purpose I realized I had more feelings towards intentions compared to goals.

After learning this I set out what my intentions were, which kept me focused on the bigger picture. I had a mindset shift, a breakthrough in my thought process which fires me up to go after my intentions with a purpose and not just go through the motions when I set goals.

Intentions make me take action. Goals make me go through the motions.

This simple shift has made a massive difference as my intentions now align with my purpose. The word intention alone has a sense of power behind it, a sense of purpose, a feeling of accomplishment of doing whatever that intention may be even before completing it. When you intend on doing something you go out there and do it.

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About Gavin

Gavin De Souza is a Certified Precision Nutrition Coach and Fitness Professional.

He has worked in several training facilities in the UK and US, specializing in Personal Training, Nutrition, Body Transformation, as well as Youth Fitness Development and Sport Specific preparation.

Gavin has been involved in the Fitness Industry since 2002.

In addition, Gavin focuses on helping to serve, mentor, inspire, lead and empower busy, successful, professionals, to find balance in their lives, so that they can unleash their true potential, to LOOK, FEEL and PERFORM at their ultimate best in sport and life.